#brunot-labbe

Decorative Sunday

This Sunday we present our 1811 copy of Promenade ou Itinéraire des Jardins D’Ermenonville, with aquatints by J. Marigot. Born Jacques-François Mérigot II (1760-1824) to the Parisian publisher and bookseller Jacques-François Mérigot (c. 1720-1799), the younger engraver and printer spent much of his career in London working under the name James Merigot. Promenade ou Itinéraire des Jardins D’Ermenonville was first published in 1788 by the elder Mérigot. Our 1811 printing also lists Merigot as publisher; by that time the business was most likely under the direction of Jacques-François’s younger brother, Jean-Gabriel Mérigot (c. 1738-1818). Also listed as publishers are (Claude) Brunot-Labbe and Le Normant, both of Paris, and M. Richard of Château d’Ermenonville. Printing was completed by L’Impimerie de Belin. 

The book features twenty-five aquatints of views from D’Ermenonville, now known as Parc Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Located about an hour by car from the center of Paris, the gardens were cultivated by René de Girardin as an illustration of his ideal philosophical relationship between man and nature. Giradin was Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s last pupil and Rousseau spent the last six weeks of his life there, and was laid to rest in the park’s l’Ile des Peupliers. His remains were later relocated to the Panthéon; his empty tomb (or cenotaph) remains as a monument to the great French philosopher. 

In addition to select aquatints, featured above is the book’s lovely Turkish-patterned marbled endpapers and two leaves of music for a song written by Girardin’s son Louis Stanislas de Girardin, titled “Du Berger du la Grotte Verte” or “Shepard of the Green Grotto.” Also included is a handwritten note written on the flyleaf, copied from the British newspaper The Sphere, dated September of 1914. 

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